


(won't let you) slip away from me

by alexscarlet



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Bulimia, Child Neglect, Childhood Friends, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Protective Iwaizumi Hajime, Self-Hatred, Thunderstorms, dont take these tags lightly?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-20 03:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9473717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexscarlet/pseuds/alexscarlet
Summary: they finally address the elephant in the room.(he should've done this years ago.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **please read the tags**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> to anyone else who struggles: i wrote this a while ago when i was having a lot of problems with disordered eating (although never, thankfully, did my ed take the form of bulimia), and reading it now when i've been almost-relapsing recently strikes deep. please remember that it's ok to eat. you always have permission to eat. moving around your house can be enough to burn most of your calories. identify those bad thoughts and try super hard not to listen! you're doing so well. i wish you all an iwa-chan of your own.

**(won’t let you)**

**slip away from me**

 

It’s not like it hadn’t happened before.

 

As much as he wished it wasn’t - god, how he wished it had never happened - the situation was all too sickeningly familiar.

 

The coughs and splutters, the sweaty drag of fingers against the bowl, the retching, tight and high and throaty, the dripping trickle echoing around the tiled bathroom.

 

That light dribbling was the worst.

 

It meant he was too late.

 

A conversant and irregular thump started deep below the skin of his temples, glistening as he broke out in cold sweat, and the orange lights around the bathroom mirrors blurred disconcertingly, adding to the whirling around him. The world was moving too fast, tugging him in every direction, thoughts scattering - like cherry blossom on the wind, decaying petals and words too powerful and not powerful enough - across the floor. He nearly joined them.

 

Instead, he turned blindly, gripping at the wall and opening the door as quietly as he could, though above the harsh gagging he could probably scream and not be heard. He felt the urge to. He didn’t.

 

The door closed with a click that cut through him and ricocheted down the corridor, the silence deafening after the volume of the bathroom. A wave could have crashed into him and he wouldn’t have felt it; he was already being washed into hollowness, was already drowning, the way up evading him. An hysterical cackle rose in his throat as he slid to the floor with his back against the closed door, the wooden panels digging into his spine. He wanted to curl up and never move. He wanted to sleep and dream that reality hadn’t ruined his life.

 

Outside, hammering on the roof, hammering like his heartbeat behind his eyes, rain fell with more intent than it had in years. Since before he’d found out about it. Or maybe he’d been immune to storms since then. Nothing could scare him more than the things he now knew, but he had been scared of storms long ago. Terrified, even. It was idiotic, how much he’d been frightened of them. His mother’s hands had never calmed him. Besides, after a few years, she’d become impatient. She was always impatient for him to grow up, but she loved him, she really did, he could feel it in the way she let him sleep in and risked being late the work the next morning to drive him to school instead of making him take the early train.

 

But her unspoken, rough-and-tumble love of extra eggs at breakfast and hair ruffles weren’t for deafening thunder and violent downpours and flashing electricity humming in the black air. That was for wet clothes soaked with three blocks’ worth of rain slung over his chair. Freezing feet pressed against his. Hands rough from volleyball practice. Messy brown bedhead against his cheek. Warmth swirling in eyes illuminated by those silly scented candles.

 

He thought he smelt them now, until the gale snatched the scent away and vanilla - so strong he could taste it on his tongue - no longer filled his senses. Only silent, empty wooden floors and blinding school lights and a fervent, desperate regret that he’d stayed behind with him to lock up whilst everyone had gone ahead, leaving the storm to fulfill the threats it had been making all week. They were stranded here without umbrellas and too many files to shelter from the hail.

 

He had _encouraged_ them, with a smile, to leave. Go home before the storm started.

 

But.

 

He couldn’t do this alone.

 

Hands came to cover his face as whimpers cowered past closed classroom doors, tip-toeing past pin-boards with too-bright posters.

 

With a start, he realized the whimpers were his.

 

The realization shocked emptiness into him, a shot of desolation straight into his veins, freezing his blood.

 

He didn’t know how long he’d sat there, with the planet spinning unsteady around him, only that it had been too long and not long enough. He couldn’t let it happen anymore, not when it was killing them both, slowly and excruciatingly. Knees cracked and he winced as he forced shivering muscles into supporting him. With the bathroom door like an impossible wall in front of him, he took a breath that caught in shrunken lungs and obstinately pushed it open.

 

The moment he stepped inside, there was a frantic scrabbling and a flush. He baulked and swallowed hard, gulping back bile and tears. Discarding the silence - a clandestine silence, a smothering silence - he took a step forward, and before he knew it, he had flown across the bathroom and was hammering at the door.

 

He’d planned it out in his head, the sympathetic, reassuring knocking and soft voice calling. But the frantic flushing and gasps harsh against the cubicle walls and escaping to the bathroom at large, escaping to pant straight into him, stealing his own breath, had stripped away his flimsy composure and left him with nothing but anger.

 

“OIKAWA, _OIKAWA_. YOU OPEN THIS DOOR _NOW_. DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME? I SAID OPEN IT, GOD- _FUCKING_ -DAMN IT.”

 

He shouted until his own heart had been yelled out of his chest and hovered in splinters above him.

 

A small click brought the fragments crashing down, piercing him with wounds more fatal.

 

His hand wasn’t shaking when he pushed it open, it _wasn’t_.

 

He wished he didn’t know what to expect, but he did. He thought he did, anyway.

 

It was worse.

 

He was one sickening stomach-clench away from throwing up himself but God knew there had been enough of that already. He took in the sight in front of him, the boy on the floor, taller than him by four centimetres but looking tiny with them. Broken despite them.

 

“Tooru.” The name fell from his lips, rolling off his tongue, trickling to splash on the tiles. It was like that time the ball had whacked him in the face and his lip had bled. His shirt had been stained and his mother had been angry, but not nearly as angry as Oikawa had been, sighing as he wiped him up, “such an idiot, Christ, I can’t believe I let you leave the house”. He’d kicked him, indulging in their characteristic over-the-top, melodramatic violence underlain with inescapable fondness. He hadn’t seen the winces; nobody had.

 

At the soft splash of his name, the boy on the floor raised his eyes, and the dark circles beneath seeped into his soul and melted it.

 

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to kill somebody, preferably her. For doing this to him; for doing this to them both. He wanted to, but God, did he ever feel exhausted.

 

The longer those eyes searched his (what was he looking for? Couldn’t they search together?) the swifter the fight slid out of him, pooling around his aching feet. His clenched fists (when had he clenched them?) loosened. He had been struggling to keep the tears back but the effort was too much. The cold light of the stall refracted inside the first teardrop, catching the light and spinning it into something too beautiful for the whole situation. But, then again, Oikawa was like that: cold and overflowing with sadness so sweet it could be mistaken for joy.

 

When was the last time he had cried of joy? Not since before the last storm, he was sure. A thunderclap punched through him and he swayed limply.

 

The lightening struck and he was stuck with the trembling, deep, booming thunder.

 

He pitched into action, the feeling of the soles of his feet lifting, his weight on the balls of them. Then he was on the floor and the tiles had hurt his knees but his heart was hurting more so he ignored the pain, refocusing.

 

The sudden movement had shocked Oikawa. The fright was scratched across his face. It was the first real emotion he’d seen there since forever. It had swallowed his features, his eyes swum with it, all vulnerability and wide pupils.

 

He had a vague idea that he was smiling; if there was feeling there, there was something he could work with wasn’t there? If he really was smiling, no wonder Oikawa looked so terrified. With a shuddering breath he smoothed his expression but the fear made no move from Oikawa’s face. Worry discoloured hope, until realization struck.

 

It wasn’t just the sudden proximity that had Oikawa shuffling back to press between the cubicle wall and the white porcelain toilet, lid down and so inconsequential, pulling his narrow knees up to his chest. It was the sudden proximity to everything. There was nowhere to run. No way to avoid the inevitable confrontation. God knew he wanted to run, wanted to continue their delicate dance of fake smiles and brushing fingertips and pretending to be scared of storms still, just so he could once more feel those long, elegant arms around him.

 

They couldn’t, though. At this stage, it wasn’t even that they _wouldn’t_ or _shouldn’t_. Instead, he thought it could be physically impossible to show Oikawa that sort of weakness anymore; he had to be the strong one. It was up to him now. It was his turn to provide wet clothes and freezing feet and hands rough from volleyball practice and warmth and silly scented candles.

 

Maybe not the candles. Those were Oikawa’s own, beautiful, idiosyncrasy.

 

Neither of them had moved; the deep thrumming rainfall on the roof and their own breathing, Oikawa’s slightly harsher and his slightly deeper were the only sounds in the bathroom. The whole school maybe.

 

Slowly, but with intent - because he was doing this, he could do it - he shifted his weight forward and reached out a trembling hand. He hoped Oikawa didn’t see the trembling where it hovered over his knee.

 

He’d had a cat when he was younger. It wasn’t really his cat. His grandmother had died and her son was even more useless than her daughter, so the cat had been passed with scratches and hisses to his mother. She may not have been so useless, but she was still pretty awful. And he hadn’t liked to admit it then, but whenever his mum was free he wanted her attention on him. So he fed and looked after the cat and whenever she asked he’d respond with a cheerful “all done!” and she’d smile and ruffle his hair and talk to him for a while, before she was rushing off somewhere else. It was a blatant lie. The cat was hardly ever done.

 

It had hated the new house after being in his grandmother’s for all its life (he never knew its age). It mewed for food so much it was a wonder the thing wasn’t round as the full moon. It ran madly in the yard and scratched at the door to be let in. But worst of all, it craved attention even more than he did and constantly fought him for it. He’d be doing laundry and she’d curl up in the pile of damp, clean clothes and shed hair all over them. Every single time he kicked her away and put them back in for another spin, and then she’d slink back and he’d sink to the floor and hold out his hand resignedly and she’d approach slowly but surely and nudge her little wet, pink nose into his fingers.

 

They hated each other, they really did. He teased her with fluffy yarn and she sat on everything (his homework, his dinner, his dirty sports kit, his pillow, everything) and the house was empty but for the two of them and they made it work. He ranted at her when his schoolmates were stupid and she sharpened her claws on his arms and legs. She mopped up his tears when his mother hadn’t eaten dinner with him for a week, and he pulled thorns out of her padded feet, nuzzling her yowls away.

 

He cried when she died. He cried more when she died than when his grandmother had. He cried more when she died than when his faceless father had (but he had been young then). His mother had been shocked and pulled him into a bone-crushing hugs but he didn’t want her suits and cigarette perfume and pecks on his cheek and dinner made for him and a bath run for him afterwards. He wanted to feel soft, moon-cream fur and growling purrs and long hairs on his pyjamas and rough tongue licks on his elbows, and dinner with her twining through his legs and begging for mouthfuls.

 

He wanted Oikawa back in his arms.

 

Just as he was about to let his hand fall again, giving up, Oikawa moved. It was so subtle he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t felt the gentle nudge of his knee against his palm. No little wet, pink nose but warm and familiar and welcome all the same. So very welcome.

 

He was still crying. He didn’t even know when he’d started. Maybe he’d always been crying. It just wasn’t always visible.

 

Oikawa’s eyes followed a teardrop down his cheek. His hand came to cup his jaw, thumbed away the wetness with trembling fingers. His own fingers trembled against Oikawa’s knee.

 

Oikawa tried to clear his throat; the key word being _tried_. His purple lips formed the words, but no “don’t cry” sounded.

 

How could he _not_ cry?

 

“How can I not?” The question was so rhetorical it needed to be said. History demanded that it be said. Oikawa’s pale, pale cheeks, blood-drained and complimenting the cold toilet bowl his cheek was lent against, coloured high across his cheekbones, a vivid, shocking crimson. The blush faded quickly and he opened his mouth again, protestation and confusion replacing the fear in his dark eyes. Without thinking, he lurched forward, that stop-start motion again, and clamped a hand over Oikawa’s mouth. The boy flinched so violently his head jerked and knocked the toilet. “Shit, sorry.” His breath caught in his throat at Oikawa’s puppet shrug. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…”

 

Maybe if he said it enough times Oikawa would forgive him.

 

Maybe if he said it enough times he could forgive himself.

 

Maybe if he said it too much it would lose meaning.

 

Maybe it had never had enough meaning to begin with.

 

His brain hurt, blood punching his temples from the inside. The short distance between his hand and Oikawa’s face crackled with electricity and outside the air split with it, lightening ripping the sky apart, so you couldn’t help but think it would be rent forever. There must be some way to fix it, some obscure healing. He just couldn’t think beyond the way Oikawa’s eyes had once given glimpses into a radiant soul but were now shrouded in anxious iciness. The vanilla candles would’ve melted the chill right out of him, he thought as he lowered his hand to rest on the tiles beside Oikawa’s socked foot (where were his shoes?), but he also thought Oikawa had stopped buying the candles ages ago. Months ago. Years?

 

“How long? I’ve known-“ he swallowed the saliva sticking in his throat, choking him, “But before that? When-?”

 

That shrug again. The tears came faster.

 

“No, no, don’t shrug, please, please, please…” He was begging. He wasn’t even sure if he was begging for the information or for forgiveness. Most likely both. (Of course it was both.)

 

It was too much, all of it. He couldn’t do it. He was helpless. He was a cat with a thorn in its paw and nobody crying into its tummy-fur.

 

For once his muscles obeyed smoothly and he sank forward, his forehead resting on Oikawa’s knees. Oikawa shifted and he panicked once more; had he startled him again? Made him even more uncomfortable?

 

The freezing fingers and weak push on his upper arm were such a surprise it was he that jumped, not Oikawa, this time. Obediently he drew away, brushing away the tears that clung like stars to his eyelashes, sniffing despite himself.

 

“N-no.” Oikawa croaked. The echo of vomit blurred with false laughter, and unleashed another flood of tears and an unconcealed sob, his shoulders shuddering. “D-don’t.” He didn’t understand the lacing of frustration in Oikawa’s sorrowful rasp. He didn’t know what to _do_ ; he was frustrated too but why-? “Here.” The command had him looking back at Oikawa, who had maneuvered himself into a kneel and was holding out his arms.

 

God, he needed to pull himself together.

 

He should be the comforter here, and he needed to pull himself together, and he needed…a hug from Oikawa, more than anything. More than the breath that slammed out of his lungs, even though Oikawa pulled him close with such gentleness, like he thought he was going to float away. How ironic, when _Oikawa_ was the one floating away…it was all so muddled and messed up and he was clutching at his most special person like he could keep him there just with the feeling of skin against skin. He had pulled away before and it had almost killed him, and done even worse to _him_. He wasn’t going to let Oikawa go another time. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

 

Their grip on each other loosened and he tipped his head back to study Oikawa’s face from this angle. Beneath his hands, he felt the goosebumps raise on Oikawa’s skin as his breath washed over his too-prominent cheekbones. He was so fragile and so beautiful, like a fluttering butterfly that had been buffeted too many a time by a gale intent on destruction.

 

He was going to kill her, he really was.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for the love y'all gave part 1 <3

“You’re not. You can’t.” said Oikawa.

 

“Fuck.” He meant to sound aggressive but he just sounded devastated and a little snotty. He sniffed again and Oikawa’s lips twitched. He didn’t know when he’d stopped crying, but he was crying again at that little twitch.

 

He honestly didn’t mean to say “I miss your smile” but it just slipped off his tongue, hanging in the air around them before showering them with cold water and tense limbs and no goosebumps, only a notch between Oikawa’s eyebrows.

 

“I s-smile.”

 

“It’s fake-“ he spoke again, unable to stop himself. Then, below his breath, a hardly audible whisper. “It’s all fake.”

 

Another wince. He was so shit at this. Where was this chapter, then, in the Best Friend Handbook?

 

“She stole your smile and she-“

 

“-loves me.” There was a sharp nod, causing him to nearly knock his chin on the toilet bowl again. “She does. M-more than I d-deserve.”

 

Deep in his stomach a rumbling growl formed, ripping up his throat, pouring out his eyes in saltwater and aching in his teeth. Quickly, he gripped Oikawa tight again, snarling against his skin, “You deserve so much more. You deserve everything.”

 

That was. Well. A bit intense. But somebody had to say it. Somebody had to tell him, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to. All she seemed concerned with was making him stay dependent on her, striving to be more than he could, constantly feeling lacking.

 

“You’re not lacking,” he sobbed fiercely, “You’re perfect. You’re you. You’re enough.”

 

Oikawa’s hand was so skeletal he could hardly feel the way he was carefully brushing through his dark mess of hair. Automatically, the gesture relaxed him, but tension returned at the shushing.

 

“Don’t shush me, I’m going to kill her. I’m desperate and desperate people do desperate things.”

 

“You’re not st-stupid though. S-so y-you won’t d-do something stupid.”

 

“No, I’ll just beat her half to death and-“ Oikawa’s hand stilled immediately.

 

“No. N-no, no beating.” They both froze, the tears freezing on his cheeks, the sobs freezing in his throat, the blood freezing in his veins. He reached up to disentangle Oikawa’s hand from his hair, brought it down and clasped it ever so gently in both of his. In the cold bathroom there was no warmth to share, but he hoped - dear God, how he hoped - that he could convey some sense of how much he-

 

“It only hurts a bit.” Oikawa said. He didn’t reply and weighted silence draped itself over the stalls and misted the mirrors. When Oikawa still didn’t continue, even after a long, long time (though he was pretty sure he’d lost all sense of time ages ago, everything blurred into shielded hearts and broken bodies), he asked,

 

“What…what does?”

 

“Everything.”

 

“That’s.” he swallowed down the choking sob. “Not an answer.”

 

“The…the hits and the words and the hunger. ‘M used to them.” Don’t continue, he wanted to scream. Oikawa screamed before he could, “No, no you can’t run now, not when you’ve forced me to-“ His eyes were wide and dark and desperate. “Why’d you force me?”

 

He raised their hands to his forehead and took a deep, juddering breath that brought with it the faintest taste of storm. He’d always loved the way storms tasted because storms meant wet clothes soaked with three blocks’ worth of rain slung over his chair and freezing feet pressed against his and hands rough from volleyball practice and messy brown bedhead against his cheek and warmth swirling in eyes illuminated by silly scented candles. Candles and storm. That was Tooru’s scent. It still could be, hidden in the bones beneath the layers of bruises.

 

The silence stretched on, until…

 

“I’d burn every last bit, you know.” Oikawa’s voice was escalating, climbing with frantic haste to alarming heights. “I’d raze that house to the ground, all the pieces of him in the corners and all her screams and fists and I’d burn with it all. It’s not as though I’m not burning already, is it?” A hysterical laugh bubbled out of his throat. “All of me. And I bet it wouldn’t even fucking hurt. Nothing does anymore, it’s all emptiness, and at least fire would be better than the fucking dark!” Oikawa yelled, his voice cracking painfully, his usually musical voice scratchy and broken. In a whisper he added, “And I _can_ start the fire without you.” He raised his eyes from the floor, met his. “R-really, I can.”

 

It took a bit of throat clearing and several deep breaths but finally, he managed to say “No.”, shaking his head as he did so.

 

“I can.” Oikawa pressed, shifting his weight forward in his earnestness, gripping his hand a little tighter. “I don’t need your permission.”

 

“You need me to give up, though.” No response this time, and those eyes turned down to the floor again and those tensed muscles deflated like burst balloons, so Oikawa slumped back. He could feel his fingers gripping Oikawa’s too hard but couldn’t stop himself. “You need me to stop caring.”

 

Into the side of the toilet bowl, Oikawa muttered, “I don’t deser-“

 

“Don’t tell me what you deserve.” he spat. Oikawa tried to pull his hand away but his arms were too weak. He watched the struggle for a while in desolate pain. “F-fuck, how do you even serve?”

 

“You need me to. You all do; you _need_ me. It’s the least I can do just for that.”

 

“I need you for more than just a serve, Oikawa.” His breath left him in a short gust of dire laughter. “It’s just a game.” The wind was whistling through a crack in one of the high up windows and goosebumps rose where their skin was exposed. “And you’re more than a game, so much more.” He bit back a curse but he was just so _frustrated_.

 

How could he _show_ him? How he felt the hits as if they were happening to him? How he felt _sick_ just looking at Oikawa’s body? How his heart burned with an ice so fierce he thought it would consume all his cells and he’d combust every time he thought of the woman who had once smiled at him over freshly baked cookies and gone to parent’s evening when his own mother was too busy working?

 

How do you convince somebody you love them when they’ve given up on love altogether?

 

The pit of his stomach and the gray matter in his head churned in opposing directions at the impossibilities facing him, the walls that confined them both to this caged existence of self-hatred and despair. It was no Dateko. It was no bloody game. It was more than that. It was the claustrophobic loneliness and the searching for somebody’s hand in the darkness by following the black beating of their heart in the middle of the night. It was a fading memory of wet clothes soaked with three blocks’ worth of rain slung over his chair and freezing feet pressed against his and hands rough from volleyball practice and messy brown bedhead against his cheek and warmth swirling in eyes illuminated by silly scented candles.

 

Trembling, he raised Oikawa’s hand to his lips, and over the white knuckles he breathed a promise. He didn’t think he had ever meant any other words more than he meant those few. The tendrils of syllables wove together in his mind and spread through his blood vessels to the far corners of his body where they took root in every cell and wrote, in the same scratchy handwriting Oikawa had scolded him for teasingly since they were ten, “I won’t give up.”

 

Oikawa shuddered violently, but the words had formed a barrier between them only Oikawa himself could break, so he was stuck hugging him mentally. It was mental all right. Everything was. He managed to keep his hysteric smile inside this time. Oikawa looked away from his earnest gaze, eyes flicking painfully to the toilet bowl beside him, his Adam’s apple bobbing instinctively. He screwed his eyes up tight to block the images from his mind. One step at a time, he thought. One of Oikawa’s fingers twitched subconsciously and he suddenly realized he was still ceasing the blood flow to them, made to hold them softer.

 

“Please don’t let go.”

 

It was so quiet, he wasn’t sure he’d heard properly. Maybe it had been a figment of his imagination. He hadn’t seen Oikawa’s purple lips move and the boy hadn’t turned to face him in anyway. He’d become well acquainted with his imagination, since he’d found out.

 

Instead of remembering the shock, the momentary bliss of confusion, then denial, in the face of crimson and dark purple bruises swelling milk white skin, pale as the bathroom tiles. Instead of remembering the long, elegant fingers of one hand slipping on the porcelain bowl with the others stuck down his throat, the scarring echoes of retching and heavy coughs as a soul and a heart were thrown up and flushed away, to somewhere beneath skin and within bones where they could be safer than the sleeve they’d graced before…

 

Instead of remembering those, he’d delved into his imagination. God, it was a beautiful place. The biggest problems facing them were Ushijima Wakatoshi and troublesome younger years (who actually were rather amusing and made them laugh a lot behind the backs of their hands). There was nobody slipping into financial ruin as a father ruined himself in god knows what (drugs? drink? disillusionment?), nor a mother who blamed a son in her denial. No, nope, nothing like that in the rosy fingered dawns and warm sunsets of cycling to school and ice cream dripping over fingers and laying in the grass as the team relaxed on a day off. And piano duets on old family heirlooms that really needed tuning, and eyes meeting across the classroom, and tears only staining their faces when losing left them leaving the court and…alarms that woke him up to reality.

 

What a joke.

 

“D-do you th-think anyone is here?” Oikawa was no longer gazing (almost longingly, fuck) at the toilet, but had redirected that doleful glance towards him.

 

“’s a storm. Sure they’ve all left. Brought umbrellas or didn’t have to lock up.” He jumped at Oikawa’s bark of laughter - which swiftly turned into a cough.

 

“Or didn’t have dumbasses throwing up blood in the loos.”

 

“Blood.” He repeated, before he could help himself. He really needed a better brain-to-mouth filter.

 

The blue lights above made his gorgeous eyelashes cast long shadows onto Oikawa’s cheekbones as he fluttered them alluringly. “I could show you if you’d like. It only hurts a bit, and I still feel like shit.”

 

“F-fuck.” His sobs were back at full-force, drowning him. Drowning, drowning, drowning him. Oikawa’s bony hand twisted in his own, his uncut fingernails scratching his palms, but the little squeeze he received showed him how to breathe underwater.

 

“I’m sorry.” Oikawa said. “I was only joking. I was only joking. Don’t cry. It’s okay.”

 

“It’s not, it’s not, don’t you fu-fucking _dare_ say it’s okay, nothing is ev-ever okay and _n-never_ will b-be b-because I love you and you ca-can’t even see wh-what _she’s_ doing to you and I’m trying, I’m trying so hard, what do I _do_? What else? What else do you want from me? N-no, don’t answer, I know you never wanted anything…because you think you don’t deserve it, right? But you do, God, you deserve everything and _more_ , more than I could ever give you, I love you, dumbass. You’re so fucking insecure but I don’t know what for? Because Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful. Gorgeous, fuck. Inside and out and all the fucking clichés. I _love_ you. Don’t do this anymore. Don’t do this to yourself, don’t do this to me, don’t do this to us.”

 

Oikawa’s eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them. He let out a shuddering breath over his cracked lips, before he drew them in with his teeth, gnawing on the red. When he opened his mouth again to speak, there were beads on blood on his lips. “I never meant. I never meant to do this to you. I never wanted to hurt you-“

 

“But _every_ time you hurt yourself it hurts _me_. That’s what love is, Assikawa. _That’s_ what love is.” And he leant in and pressed his closed, fraught lips gently against Oikawa’s. They were surprisingly warm, the copper taste of blood seeping through the kiss, which was appallingly appropriate. Oikawa’s mouth opened slightly, in shock? in desire? The kiss was all dry and desperate and he didn’t give a fuck. He brought a hand up to slip through Oikawa’s hair, burying his hands in the curls, burying himself in Oikawa, keeping him close.

 

“Beautiful,” he gasped when they broke apart; both gulping down air like the pressure had suddenly dropped.

 

“N-no.” He didn’t know if it was a protest at the kiss, but took it immediately as a denial of the truth and reiterated it once more, then again and again, in between soft kisses to Oikawa’s temples and eyes and hair and cheekbones and jawline and the creases in his neck, until the word overtook the bathroom, washing over them both, lapping at the walls, spilling from the sinks, seeping under the doors of the cubicles, submerging the boy in his arms in a dolorous embrace.

 

Oikawa pulled away, choking, flailing his arms and breaking free of the sweet murmurs as if they were entangling him like cankerous weeds. In the corner of the cubicle, he rose unsteadily to his feet, like a newborn foal, using the toilet for support. From the floor, he looked up at him.

 

“Tooru?” Oikawa flinched at the sound and he was immediately on his feet. Though, when he up there, he found himself undecided. Should he back away? Step closer? Eventually he settled for another soft, “Sorry.” The word dragged Oikawa’s eyes back to his face (they were always wandering off, lost as his soul, scared to meet another’s gaze).

 

Oikawa coughed and a trickle of blood slid down his chin and dripped to the floor. He wasn’t sure if it was from his lips or worse and he was so done with hoping for the best. With shaking hands, he tore off some loo paper and shuffled closer to the taller boy, gripping his jaw to angle it helpfully, dabbing up the blood (a bit smeared across Oikawa’s lips and stained them even darker and he had to bit his own to keep himself from surging forward and capturing them in a kiss once more).

 

“Y-you’re hurting me.” He didn’t let up his tight hold on Oikawa’s chin and from that distance easily saw Oikawa’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. The movement made him drop his hand and lean forward to rest his head on Oikawa’s shoulder.

 

“Please don’t be scared.” he muttered. “I won’t kiss you again.”

 

Oikawa seemed to choke a little and soon started coughing. He drew away anxiously only to find the boy blushing deep pink. It was the prettiest colour he’d seen all evening, all week, even. Without thinking, he brushed the back of his hand over Oikawa’s cheek; with similar instinct, Oikawa tilted his head into it. Turning his hand over, he cupped Oikawa’s cheek, rubbing with his thumb over the sharp bone beneath the rosy skin.

 

“U-um…” Oikawa let out an awkward huff of laughter.

 

He dropped his hand down and sought Oikawa’s. Their fingers entwined. He pivoted and pulled him gently with him. His hand didn’t shake when he pushed the cubicle door open.

 

Mirrors on the wall and the sight of Oikawa’s face paling over his shoulder, before Oikawa collapses forwards into his back. Thin arms cradled between his shoulder blades, hands curling into the back of his shirt. He doesn’t move, waiting for Oikawa to do anything or say something.

 

“How can you love me?” Oikawa’s voice broke, and his heart broke with it. By this stage, he was pretty sure he’d never be able to fix all the pieces of his soul back into place, let alone Oikawa’s. “I’m s-so u-ugly. Dis-disgusting.” He spat the last bit and both of them winced.

 

He simply reached over his shoulder to relink his hand with Oikawa’s before tugging him out of the door to the bathroom.

 

His footsteps echoed down the empty corridors, black and shadowed, but Oikawa tread them quietly, had always stepped softly in the dark; this time he was aided by being barefoot.

 

“Shoes?” Oikawa shook his head, holding on to his upper arm with the hand he wasn’t holding, so tight he knew he would have bruises of fingers there. Leaving the darkest part of the tunnel, Oikawa whispered in his ear, “It’s not so bad with somebody holding your hand,” and he wondered how many times Oikawa had walked these murky halls alone.

 

Side by side, they stood silhouetted by the weak grey light coming through the glass doors, casting long, pale shadows behind them. As Oikawa took a step forward, Oikawa’s hand slipped from his. His fingers chased, but, wary of forcing it upon him, he let his hand fall. Oikawa raised a hand to rest on the cold glass, on the other side of which rain trickled down like tears, forming rivers that ran swiftly to the floor where puddles reflected the dark clouds above.

 

A flash of lightning and the ensuing crash of expanding air, rumbling through the glass. Oikawa looked behind him, met his eyes with those wide, crumbling ones, concern melting the edges.

 

“Are you o-okay? There’s a storm and you…you don’t like them, do you? Or was that just when we were-“

 

“No, no. I mean.” He grabbed Oikawa’s hand and tugged him out of the heavy glass doors decisively. Within seconds the rain had plastered their hair to their scalps, soaked their clothes through. Oikawa’s hands were freezing, but so were his, so the temperature difference didn’t seem so bad, and more importantly, these hands were so familiar; if he ran his pinky down the side of Oikawa’s hand he could feel the rough callouses from hours upon hours of mind and body torture in the gymnasium. Oikawa, who was waiflike and fragile as a shell already, seemed to shrink further with the loss of his ever-messy locks but the hope in his chocolate eyes swirled hotter than the raindrops and teardrops between them and lit a fire he hadn’t realized had gone out deep within him; no furious blaze but a caressing, flickering flame painted with nostalgia and fed with homegrown kindling. He raised his head and closed his eyes against the rain.

 

“I’ve been coping, with the storms, but...” A deep breath, and he opened his eyes slowly, rain on his lashes, before pulling Oikawa forward with him, past his bicycle, towards the main gate. He didn’t want his bike now. He couldn’t hold Oikawa’s hand on a bicycle. He could feel those vulnerable, piercing eyes on his face and squeezed Oikawa’s hand for reassurance. Oikawa squeezed back, lightly, cautiously, still so scared, so scarred, but the pressure was there.

 

It was real, everything was real; the electric remnants of the storm in the navy sky, the gravel crunching beneath their feet, less noisy where Oikawa trod, weightless and barefoot, the rumble of thunder still audible in the distance, the chirrups of birds in the bare cherry blossom trees. Water slipped beneath his jersey and trickled icily down his spine. It was horrible but it was real, and probably the most alive he’d felt in a long, long time.

 

“I’ve missed you.”

 

One of those long silences, where the only sound was the pitter-patter of rain on the pavement, falling around them, blurring edges. Oikawa’s hand in his.

 

“And my candles?”

 

“And your silly scented candles.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments keep a fic author warm;; thank you for reading <3


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